千日手
by Sniper Hawkeye
Summary: He liked to watch her sometimes. Just watch her when she wasn't looking. ::Sasuke wonders why he is so static::. SasuSaku if you intend it that way.


A/N: I have no idea where this one came from. I was finishing a book for an English assignment and it just came to me. How Native Americans and Sharingan and genetics correlate, I don't think I'll ever know.

Disclaimer: I do not own Naruto whatsoever. If I did, Kishi would still be in charge of everything because he's just amazing like that.

* * *

千日手

* * *

せんにちて

* * *

He liked to watch her sometimes. Just watch her when she wasn't looking. He would turn on the Sharingan -- because it really shouldn't be called 'his', after all, it's not -- and watch through the red haze and see everything he wasn't looking at and wonder at how genetics could string together A's and T's and G's and C's to make eyes like his, like he had read in one of her weathered old advanced medical books once -- the kind no one looked at anymore, wrapped up as they were in their wars and politics and ninja arts. He didn't think that even she had looked at it in a while; after all, she was the Hokage's apprentice and politics and war effected her as much as the Hokage herself. Sometimes he would wonder how A's and T's and G's and C's made pink hair like hers, or how they made each of them the spitting image of people they weren't remotely related to. He supposed the four letters were a bit like the Snake, the Toad and the Slug. Those three combinations repeated made things the way they were and defined previous and future generations -- he could swear he saw them in Naruto's new genin team. Him, the unfortunate one to lose parents and family -- the Snake -- cold, quiet, _elite_. Him, the one everyone looked down on, but never loses spirit -- the Toad -- loud, obnoxious, _dead last_. Her, the peacemaker with the horrible crush -- the Slug -- unique, overlooked, _weak_. He could swear he saw the Snake, the Toad and the Slug like he had seen it in the passing generation of fifty years before. Like he had seen it in his teacher who never got the chance. Like he had seen it in himself when he looked in a mirror after years away from home. Like he saw it in the next generation -- something that scared him deeply. Like he had seen it in a legend from a long time past. The Snake, the Toad and the Slug would always be there, like the little A's and T's and G's and C's in our blood. Things that would never change, but themselves would change histories. 

He liked to watch her with his red, Sharingan eyes made of little A's and T's and G's and C's when she wasn't looking and watch what she was going to do seconds before she did it. How he saw the muscles in her hand tense before she lifted the mug of tea to her lips. How he saw the twitch in her fingers before she spread green chakra to her fingertips to heal a sprained wrist from throwing a kunai the wrong way. How he watched her speak and lip-read what he saw her saying before she said it, wondering how it would sound when she did -- he didn't do that often, though. She didn't like it when he stared at her with those red, red eyes of his.

"It feels like you're looking at me, but not," she'd say, "It looks like you're staring at everything, but you're not seeing it," she'd frown, but he'd see it first. She'd always frown when he looked at her through the red haze of Sharingan and she caught him, and he'd press his lips together for a moment and look slightly off to the side before his eyes went black, black again and he saw everything like he was supposed to see it, where the way words roll off her tongue is a surprise and he can't have an answer ready because he didn't know what she was going to say. Where he can't dodge the slap that stings his face because he wasn't expecting her to do that, and as good a ninja as he was -- because he had too much pride to be modest and say he was only average, which he wasn't -- things like that are still a surprise to him, because he still thinks he knows her. He's not so sure now.

He likes looking at her with his red, red Sharingan eyes -- made of little A's and T's and G's and C's that are so like life, so redundant in their repetition, but so different in their combination -- and through the red haze because he thinks that maybe if he sees what she's going to do, what she's going to say before she's done thinking that she'll do it, that maybe he would know her better -- understand her better. Because she's not the girl he knew when they were young and life was better and brighter and just shades of primary colours -- that, like the A's and T's and G's and C's, they make up everything with Red and Yellow and Blue just like the Slug the Toad and the Snake and just like her, Naruto and himself. After all, she was never static like he was, like Naruto was. With Naruto it was always 'going to be Hokage' or 'bring Sasuke home'. He was predictable in his actions. He always liked ramen and he was continually oblivious to that Hyuuga's white-eyed glances and he always had a bit of a foxy air about him, even after his father's seal started to wane and containing _it_ was by force of willpower alone, and he always looked towards a goal, whether it be 'Hokage' or 'Sasuke' or 'keep the Kyuubi at bay another day'. With himself, it had always been 'I must have power' or 'I must avenge my clan' or 'pride in my name' or 'I am an avenger' or, more recently, 'redeem myself'. Although he didn't like to admit it, he, too, was predictable in actions and words and mood -- for he viewed being predictable as being one of life's greatest travesties, for being predictable meant being uninteresting and why was life worth living if not to be interesting? He would always try to one-up Naruto, always try to prove to everyone that he was worthy of his clan's name, always trying to remind them of what 'Uchiha' meant to the village back before _that time_, and lately trying to prove that he was no longer the revenge-fueled power-monger he had been in his youth. He wondered why it must come with the Snake to be cold, but brilliant, as his once-upon-a-time master had been, like his teacher-who-never-got-a-chance-to-inherit-the-title had been and how he saw this next-generation-who-needed-luck would be. He was static. Naruto was static. She was not. And so, he watched her with his Sharingan eyes -- his eyes made of the Snake, the Toad and the Slug, the primary colours and those little genetic letters that he had read about in her old, weathered advanced medical textbook -- and tried to see who she would be in a moment, tried to understand a little more about why he was so static and she was not.

When he looked at her, he looked at himself, and what he saw scared him, because even with his red, red, Sharingan eyes that saw things before they happened, he was surprised.

* * *

_repetition_

* * *

A/N: If you followed my crazy run on sentences, kudos to you 


End file.
